In order to control and measure the flight tests of guided weapons in typical domestic/international national defense fields and the firing of space launch vehicles in civil fields, firing/safety control equipment and various types of measuring equipment are committed.
More specifically, tracking information (position, attitude, flight events, etc.) acquired from a tracking radar system and a telemetry system, among pieces of measuring equipment, is essential information for test control upon conducting a flight test.
The acquired tracking information is significant for control of safe and efficient tests, processing/fusion and visualization of test data, determination of real-time flight safety, actions against emergency termination, and generation of tracking equipment slave data. For this, integrated processing technology for flexible and various processing of radar and telemetry information is required.
Currently, the real-time control computer (Virtual Machine Environment (VME) bus structure and VxWorks operating system) of a mission control center receives tracking information from a plurality of tracking radar systems through RS232 signal standards, also receives guided weapon flight data from a telemetry receiving system through an Ethernet User Datagram Protocol (UDP), and performs real-time processing on the received data and visualization tasks for test data.
In order to control guided weapon flight tests and firing tasks of space launch vehicles, there are required tasks for processing/visualizing pieces of information acquired from a tracking radar system and a telemetry receiving system which correspond to core equipment. For this, a single independent system needs to process two pieces of acquired information in an integrated manner and, by means of integrated processing, principal test information required for test control can be generated.
First, according to typical technology, a real-time control computer system individually receives a plurality of pieces of radar tracking information through an RS232 standard, also receives some items needing real-time checking among pieces of telemetry data through a UDP, and performs real-time processing on the received information and items.
This scheme is problematic in that, due to system characteristics, a relatively high budget is required for development/the reinforcement of performance, telemetry information that can be processed is limited, a frequent variation in a visualization screen suitable for the characteristics of weapon systems is limited, and the movement to remote locations including island areas (including target tracking ships) is restricted upon conducting a long-range test.
Second, range safety technology (safety determination and analysis) for controlling guided weapon flight tests and space launch vehicle firing tasks is very significant for the protection of human/material resources, so that the development of technology is required, and for this, the development/inspection of algorithms is needed. However, a control computer in an existing mission control center is limited in modification/operation due to the frequent commitment to flight tests.
Third, a processing device operated in telemetry station processes only Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) signal-type telemetry signals, and is foreign-made equipment typically requiring high-cost service when separate functions are added. In other words, the processing device is characterized in that, with the development of continuous computing technology, the performance of processing devices has increased, and various visualization tools (Text, Graph, Strip/Time/Bar chart, X-Y plot, map, and 3D) are provided.
As described above, in order to overcome the described limitations, better utilize the performance of the existing processing device, and improve processing schemes, improvements such as relatively low development and maintenance costs, structural simplification for real-time properties/stability, the improvement of the ability to frequently change a visualization screen that meets weapon systems and user requirements and the ability to perform processing at remote locations, and the improvement of problems related to foreign equipment manufacturers such as high service costs, long development periods, and complex procedures in case of system-extension, have been presented.
For this, there is required the development of an independent (stand-alone) tracking information conversion apparatus, which is capable of simultaneously processing/recording a plurality of radar information and telemetry data by exploiting the existing processing devices (features: development of C-based flexible algorithm) and recording devices.